need good va's, orc underground Options

[Dog]

I'm putting together a campaign that occurs mainly in the orc underground and I'm looking for some good visual aids.

I'm looking for pics of orcs, obviously, as long as they're somewhat modern. But also I'm looking for location pictures. Steam tunnels, cramped ginza-type places and so on.

Can anyone refer me to something good? Much appreciated.

[Velocity]

Kowloon Walled City (photo archive, ethnography and collected essays): link.

[Cain]

Not a lot of pics, but here's the official Seattle Underground tour site.

Here is a site posted by a tourist. It's got some decent pics.

The Seattle Underground is very real, so you can look up lots of information on it. The history of the town is absolutely fascinating. All you need to do is practice your google-fu, grasshopper. :rotfl:

[Dog]

Yes, well... me and this "innernet" thing don't always get along so well, and I didn't know there was a real underground, actually!

Thanks guys, very useful stuff! I'll use it for shots of the parts of the underground that the orcs and dwarves didn't get around to fixing up.

Anyone know of some speculative art of what some areas might look like in the 2060's? My vision is of something greatly expanded and crudely but passionately decorated to be a place of 'orc culture'.

[Velocity]

Try searching for still shots from the documentary Dark Days, about an underground community in NYC. It's quite an amazing film and the "temporary" shelters these people built aren't so temporary: they have yards, fences, separate rooms, etc.

A suggestion? Don't presume that the Ork Underground will be "crudely decorated." Even in the 20th century, shantytowns and tent cities can take on an amazingly sophisticated esthetic. With 21st-century tools available to them (and a little magic here & there), the OU could have some places embroidered with amazing architecture.

[weblife]

Shape Earth. Do not exclude the event of a few huge caverns. Excavation by Magic is easy.

[Nikoli]

Defintely echo Velocity there. These aren't fantasy Orcs, they are metahumans, with the same relative background as you or me. While most never went to school, that doesn't mean the community founders didn't, who set up community schools where the little kneebiters got shoveled off for at least a few hours to try and learn how to read, work a phone, etc. Same with trolls, they have the same culture as anyone else does, just a different environment due to social pressure.

[Velocity]

Nikoli's right to use the word "community": this is a functioning, largely self-sustaining social group with its own mores, history, rituals, art, culture and laws. Relfecting this in the architecture and housing will make the environment that much more alive for your PCs.

It also avoids the unfortunate "trogs r stoopid" subtext that runs through many SR campaigns (and canon, to a certain extent).

[Dog]

Excellent ideas all around. Unfortunately, the only stills I could find from "Dark Days" were closeups of people. Alas; none of them orcs.

I'll go further into my own ideas:
I actually rescued, from my old roommate's trash, a floor plan of one of the colleges here in town. Bathroom-stall detail of a facility -about four blocks on a side- made of interconnect buildings. I'm calling this the 'public' part of the underground, i.e. where topsiders can come and visit or tour. I'm leaving most of it undescribed, with the following locations indicated:

Brother Edgar's: an amature boxing club. They sell tickets to fights every couple of months.

Perks: part casino, part carnival, part video-dance-party-brought-to-you-by-pepsi! Where the teeny-bopper orcs go.

The Loading Zone: (Thanks for the name, Shades!) Serving orc-tinis with the big-ass olives and featuring steel-drum orc bands. (Dunno why, but I always think of steel-drums as orc-like music.)

The East Plaza: Cheesy gift-booths and subterranian garden market.

Submarine docks: Now an open secret.

Upper tunnels: Originally s'posed to be the dwarven section. To cramped for orc comfort. Now abandoned, but the kids like to play and explore in them.

The Alley: is to the underground what the Barrens are to Seattle.

Government Hall: complete with fountains and statues of founding fathers.

Red light district: surprising how many surface norms show up here for a sampling of the forbidden fruit.

Proteus offices: Only a few corps have begun to establish permanent offices here and... well... it's integral to my plot.

Lower tunnels: "Hey, we've never seen this branch before. Looks more natural, and hey, is that little timmy calling for help?"

Hydroponics garden: Yes, yes, and for more legitimate substances, too. Perhaps mushroom farming is also big down here....

The Reaches: Of course, there must have been at least one excavating accident, leaving this expansive, unexplored and very unstable cavern. Good smuggling cache, if it wasn't for the rockworms.

Main corridor: 'case "main street" has been taken...

Secret corp lab: like you didn't see that coming.

Lodge of Brother Root: Just like the idea of a medicine lodge nestled among giant tree roots.

Comments? Elaborations?

[Thomas]

From “Horsepower Heaven”, A DSF game which, alas, seems to have slipped into a coma;